GOV.UK Design System

GOV.UK デザインシステム / 2012– / Style / Design Systems

The design language the UK government's Government Digital Service publishes and maintains for public services. Everything runs in one undecorated left aligned column set in GDS Transport, and the green button keeps square corners while carrying a darker green band along its bottom edge, dropping by exactly that depth when pressed. Whatever holds keyboard focus turns yellow with a black rule under it.

One undecorated left aligned column, with almost no boxes and no shadows / A green button with square corners and a darker green band along its bottom edge, which drops by that exact depth when pressed / Whatever holds keyboard focus turns yellow with a black rule drawn beneath it / Type sizes step coarsely through 48, 36, 24, 19 and 16px with nothing in between

Dictionary entry

Best used for
Rebuilding a government or public service form as a single left aligned column asking one question per screen · Making the current focus position unmistakable for someone operating the service by keyboard alone
Type
One sans serif only, in five fixed sizes with nothing in between. Headings are bold and body text sits at 19px.
Composition
Hold the content to a single narrow column and align every element to one left rule. No multi column layouts and no boxes, because a horizontal rule is the only break between topics.
Material
Colour is tied to meaning and never used decoratively. Buttons keep a corner radius of zero and gain their thickness from a band of their own darker shade along the bottom edge. The focus state is always yellow ground with a black underline.
Caution
Tidying the look by rounding button corners or thinning the borders on form inputs deletes the two signals this style relies on entirely, the pressable thickness and the position of focus.
Further study
GOV.UK Design System の Styles にある色の使用規則 / govuk-frontend の focused ヘルパーが黄色い地と黒い下線をどう作っているか / GDS Transport という書体の出自と、なぜ政府サービス向けに限って配られるのか

Related entries

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https://indexstyle.org/styles/govuk-design-system
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[GOV.UK Design System — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/govuk-design-system)
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